27.5:

“By the by, why on Earth did you say that?”

Alexei watches Kata’lana linger behind him in the corridors. Her stature is so small that he thinks she could melt into her lab coat and still be able to function as an able bodied mammalian would. The way her hair puffs up at the strangest angles reminds him of a puffball mushroom; alone, malleable, and would rather be left to fester on the forest floor.

She shrugs. “Felt right.”

“Hm."

"My mind is open."

He regards her offer with hesitancy before shaking his head. "I am not wont to delve into the inner thoughts of my allies."

"You read Lili Wang-Rosales' memories without her permission earlier."

Another hum. Alexei stops in front of an intricately carved door. "Lili is not an ally. Not yet.”

It’s Kata’lana’s turn to hum in discontent. “It’s not good to lie so easily to prospective allies.”

“Nor is it well to reveal our weaponry to our enemies so soon.”

His assistant says nothing at that. Indeed, Alexei’s plan has been coming together rather well. He’d told Ysh’vanna’s crew that he couldn’t control his ability, but the opposite is very much true; mind reading is about as involuntary as holding his breath beyond the scope of his lungs. It is unnatural to delve into someone’s mind, much as it is unnatural to scratch into his skin until he’s clawing bone. But his victims don’t have to know that. He has shown them his 'weakness' and fostered trust from misinformation.

"Why don't you trust the overseer girl?" asks Kata'lana.

"She has an unchecked aptitude for violence. The memory that I managed to glean from her earlier… was unsavory to the senses, to say the least. I wish I hadn't seen it."

Being well aware of Lili's origins as an overseer herself, his assistant only nods and continues down the corridor. He'd told her most of the things he knew a few days prior, but he'd kept some parts of Lili's story for himself. There are some things better left unsaid, and the truth behind how she obtained her power is one of them. That being said, her memory had come to him in broken pieces; he's still unsure as to why killing Ava had led to Lili's awakening as an overseer. Perhaps it had been the nature of Lili's actions that proved her worth to whatever higher divinity dictates their existence.

Alexei watches Kata'lana's fuzzy head disappear down the flight of stairs to her laboratory. Then he places a shaky hand on his study's doorknob.

He shakes his head and pinches the bridge between his eyes. He's an overseer, for fuck's sake. He's fended off dragons the size of buildings, has taken the most devastating of blows only to live to tell the tale—the sawtoothed scar that runs down his back can attest to that. He's seen murderers before, and Lili's story is a sad, yet common tale. To mercifully kill your best friend and question your morality afterwards is like a green leaf blanching in the wake of autumn; for Humans, who have survived the apocalypse and beyond, it is expected to have some sort of terrible past behind you. This is their legacy now.

Alexei eventually makes it behind his desk and into his plush chair. With a sigh, he sinks into the leathery material. A half-drunk glass of green absinthe stands on his table, and he downs half of it.

It stings, but it doesn't sting as much as Lili's memory. He shuts his eyes and sees the knife in her clammy hands again, the sneer from her friend, the way her weapon had thunked dully against bone before cracking through and piercing the heart. Again, it's not an uncommon image—he's gleaned far gorier memories from the scummiest of criminals—but it's her afterthoughts that stick with him the most.
 
He shuts his eyes and relives her memory again. The sneer, the crack, the plunge. He resets it before his terrible revelation each time, as if he’s in self denial of Lili's true character. He doesn't want it to be real, because she's so normal, so timid, that it's easier to forget what she is and pretend that nothing has changed. That Lili Wang-Rosales is a normal, perfectly sane, Human being.

Alexei does in the end. He lets the memory play out fully: Lili is kneeling, and her hands are caked with blood. Her friend lies dead against the wall. Alexei flinches at the sudden onslaught of emotion; he's drowning under the guilt, choking on the despair, and flailing in the dread of what he's done, of what Lili has done. The cost of seeing an individual's memory is that he must relive the moments as his victim does, and Lili's memory comes heavily laden with only the rawest of emotions.

And then there it is: underneath that patchwork of guilt and shame and terror and dread is a single glistening pearl of emotion. Alexei shuts off the memory quickly, takes another deep gulp of absinthe. He clicks his glass thumb into the table a moment after; he absolutely can't trust Lili, and this is proof. Her slash of a smile as she hacks away at the neck of her best friend during her final moments is undeniable, cement-heavy proof. If Lili Wang-Rosales had stopped there, had not sunk her blade into the tender skin of her friend's neck after mutilating her chest, it would be fine. But because she hadn't abstained, it's gone all wrong. Because of that pearl of emotion, that damned, glistening, bloodied pearl.

Because deep down, she had enjoyed every single moment of her sad, vile act. And Alexei knows that her bones, her very heart, yet aches for more.

27: the Chasm

The longer Avett stays inside this pocket dimension, the looser he starts to feel. He's not the tightest guy—nor is he trying to be the tightest guy—around in most circumstances, and by 'tight' he means ironed uniforms, collars that have been buttoned up all the way, and monochrome ties—the nine-to-five kind of tight. He's more like the kind of guy who wears his shirt with two buttons undone and with the tie thrown around his shoulder. He's not tight.

But right now, Avett feels like a total slob, both mentally and emotionally. He's beginning to shed his shell for Lilith, layer by layer, whether he likes it or not.

Waiting for the Palatable's return had proved more arduous than expected. The first day in the Chasm had passed without drama; sure, he'd bitten into her, and she'd poured her ether into his veins, but their relationship had remained right where they left it: stagnant and stale, like a bag of rotting chips underneath his bed frame. On the second day, he'd joked about getting married with her; on the third, he actually proposed.

As a joke, of course. Avett makes sure that each of his bits come off as inhumanely annoying and insincere as possible. Stars forbid if Avett manages to catch feelings for Lilith through his morbid 'jokes.' Stars fucking forbid if he lets even a shred of genuinety through his impenetrable bastion.

The worst part—or best, he's not yet sure—is that Lilith actually believes that he’s just having some fun. He's flirting at her in a 'ha ha, maybe, aha' way, and not in the 'let's say our vows and live the rest of our lives in holy matrimony' kind of way. It's incredibly easy for Lilith to brush his hints off her shoulders as just jokes, or at the very least, noncommittal compliments.

In other words; he's getting sloppy. He's so bored, so craved for attention that he's started flirting with a sheet of cardboard. But whatever keeps the dread of death at bay, he supposes.

The fourth day dawns, and the sun rises over the horizon and sets the sky ablaze in light oranges. The dome above them shimmers, wavers, then fades into the air. Avett watches all of this from the comfort of their makeshift refuge; a slipshod farmhouse with a liberal blanket of dust covering every exposed surface. He rubs at the windows with his sleeve, and the fabric comes away blackened with soot.

"I feel like we're getting nowhere," groans Lilith. She's standing over the fireplace with a ladle and a boiling pot of potatoes and mushrooms. "We're going to atrophy away at this point: we have to do something other than—this."

At 'this,' she gestures vaguely at the pot and their rapidly growing pantry of foraged mushrooms, and sighs, exasperated. Avett slumps onto the windowsill.

"You could do me," he says half-heartedly. "We never have sex anymore, darling, I feel like I'm only good for fixing the car. It's like we're strangers again."

Lilith stirs the pot hard enough for water to spill over the sides and to hiss on the blackened kindles below.

Then she says, "Let's go further than the other road today."

"All the way?" He fans himself with a plastered, giddy smile. "Stars, babe—"

A stifled laugh. “You need a new joke.”

"Bite me."

They leave the farmhouse without locking the front door—as far as they're concerned, Lilith and Avett are the only two living and breathing B rank mammalians in the Chasm—and wander past the trees. They end up on the same road they'd found a few days back, and Avett is both relieved and unnerved to see that it hasn't changed a bit. They're well and truly alone in this desolate dimension.

He glances over to Lilith; her face remains stoic. He tries to imagine a Therian city razed to the ground, a realm void of developed civilisation, but alas, he can't even empty the streets of Aurores in his mind's eye.

Lilith stands on the edge of the road with her eyes squinted against the wind. She's not broken, but to call her unbroken feels like a stretch.

They gaze into the point where the sky meets the road and land. It really does stretch on forever.

"You said nothing could leave or enter the Chasm. So what happens if someone makes contact with the barrier?" asks Lilith.

"You die." Avett shrugs.

Lilith stares at the sky, at the dome. She hums discontentedly.

Avett adds, "I lied. Nobody really knows. We just assume death because of the way dragons destroy entire populations before settling down and making this shithole in their place." He gestures to the world around them with his arms. "But no one's going through a barrier to test that theory. It's either instant death or purgatory in an unknown world. Too great of a risk to go testing."

"So the barrier's not actually real," Lilith finishes. "It's just glorified placebo."

"When did you get so sassy?"

She presses her lips together and looks away. "I'm just saying, we could've walked right through that barrier a long time ago…"

"You're insane."

A fidget. "Um, a little. It's just been sitting at the back of my mind for a while now."

She won't even deny it. Avett exhales through his nose and crosses the road.

"Could we maybe see this barrier?"

He stops and points a finger into the sky.

She coughs. "L-like, closer."

"Wouldn't even dream of crossing this landmass without the Winnow. We don't even know where we are in relation to the barrier's edge."

"If we walked in one direction—"

He's already walking away. "Could be kilometres away, princess. And that's hours and hours better spent waiting for the Palatable to come back to us."

"I don't think…" She trails off. "I mean, dragons don't have to look for us, right? That'd be kind of anti-climatic, they could probably smell us out if they wanted."

"What, you're actually just a dragon now?"

Lilith stills. "Can it find us?"

Despite himself, he swallows. He remembers their encounter—or lack thereof—with the dragon all too well; it's been seared into his waxy brain with a hot stamp and left to set in the cold. If they can't see it, then stars forbid that they actually manage to converse with it.

"They can," Avett continues slowly. "Smell us, I mean. Sorta. It's more ethereal than olfactory. Most can't do it well, but anything with an aura is…exceptionally good at it."

His shoulder aches lightly. He grips it in one hand as he's flooded with memories of five days prior. It aches like he's been gnawed into.

On the other side of the road is a grassy bank that's crawled into the minute cracks in the road. Beyond this bank lies an acre of flat farmland, dotted with toppled fences and iced with singed grass. Not a single living being to observe. Avett leaps over the first fence and offers a hand to Lilith, who gladly refuses it and hops over the obstacle by herself.

"So," he says as he lets his hand float awkwardly back to his side. "Why're we here? What's the occasion?"

Lilith's hands intertwine. She dips her head to the ground and whispers, "Wishful thinking."

"You really thought we were going to see the edge today, huh?"

"No—I just wanted to see if there was anything else to forage, I was getting tired of mushrooms, honestly."

She wants to see the edge. That much is obvious.

He snorts and clamps down on a laugh. “You’re like a sheet of glass. I can see right through you.”

A pause. Then: “So is that a ye—”

"It's a no. We were lucky enough to find shelter in this shithole, we won't be lucky to find shelter again."

Lilith doesn't argue back, but he knows what she's thinking. She could probably take Avett halfway around the globe with nothing but a moth-eaten tarp and a bundle of sticks. She's a survivor, but Avett sure as hell isn't. In this foreign, risk-addled land, he'd rather take the easy way out and sleep under a roof than be exposed to the elements. He's not strong like her.

But he doesn't say that. He touches a hand to his shoulder instead, where his ache has subsided into a faint tingle that's not unlike an itch. A crown of teeth lies on Liliths own shoulder; his teeth. Not the best gift to leave for sure.

They pass a grassy embankment, where several thinly petaled daisies lie in soft beds for eons. Below them is a hastily dug-out trench, where only a trickle of water flows through.

"I wish there was something to do," Lilith says.

It takes an astronomical amount of self-restraint for Avett not to make another joke about sex. He presses his lips together and hops across the trench instead. Lilith follows suit, albeit very clumsily.

He touches a hand to his shoulder again. Avett can’t lie to himself anymore; it’s a sensation he can’t afford to ignore, but he’s not exactly sure as to what it could possibly be aside from—

Avett hides his dread behind a light chuckle. “Excuse me, princess. Duty calls.”

Luckily for him, Lilith catches onto his innuendo almost immediately. "Didn't you just go this morning?"

"I'm a growing boy; I need my pisses."

She says nothing else as he hobbles his way behind a shrub and a tree. With trembling hands, he takes out the tube of ointment from his pocket and presses a finger into his shoulder through his jacket.

It doesn't hurt. It's fine.

He prods at it again. It should be fine then. It shouldn't be anything serious. He whispers these sentences to himself, over and over, like he's reciting a religious mantra to the stars. His fingers tremble as he twists off the cap on the tube.

Avett swallows and resists the urge to pinch his nose. Let the pungent odor wake him; he needs this. Then he slides his arm out of his sleeve and accesses the site of injury.

He blinks. There's something on his shoulder alright, but it's not quite what he expected. He recalls how the dragon's aura had stripped him bare of his identity, had burned his skin until he was nothing but charred bone; the sensation on his shoulder is far from that. It tingles like he's relieving himself of an itch.

He brushes a hand over his skin. On his shoulder is a mark—not a dragon's mark, but a birthmark, though Avett is sure that he's never seen anything like this on his body before. The mark is darker than the skin surrounding it, and it seems to be in the shape of a square with its sides caved in. At the bottom of this square is a small protrusion that resembles a stem.

It takes a moment for Avett to realise what the mark is supposed to be. He peeks around the tree and steals a glance at Lilith. He'd bitten her on the shoulder the week prior during his recovery, had pumped him full of her own ether—her own aura—before holding him in her arms.

He looks back at his own shoulder.

The mark is in the shape of a lily.

—

Lili's started toying with the grass by the time Avett is done pissing. With the tips of her fingers shod in chlorophyll, she waves at the younger man; he scowls back before he catches himself and turns away.

He must be really pee-shy, is the conclusion she's come to. For a guy who talks about sex all the time, he sure is ashamed of his equipment’s secondary purpose. She doesn’t press it any further.

“Artifact,” he says, his eyes trained to the grass. “I think we could meet somewhere in the middle and look around for an artifact.”

“Ysh’vanna said that the dragons weren’t here often,” Lili says. “They wouldn’t drop artifacts in here.”

“Yeah, well, dragons—” He pauses and clasps his hands together before releasing them again. “—They shit out artifacts. Pop pop. Just like that, especially when they’re more comfortable with their surroundings. There’s a good chance there’s one lying around. Pass me your GlassLink.”

She does just that. He sighs. “Unlocked, please.”

“I don’t use passcodes.”

“You show your nice mum your nudes too?”

I hated my mother. "Never took any."

He snorts and taps a few times at her GlassLink. "Here. The artifact locator comes pre installed. Fire away."

Lili's face is blank as she observes the screen. "There's nothing here."

"Double tap to zoom out—"

"I know how to use a phone."

Avett says nothing. There isn't a single spot of interest on her screen, and according to the scale, there's absolutely nothing within five kilometres of their location.

Staying silent, she puts her GlassLink back into her pocket and shuts her eyes. She lets her ether lash out—a coil of tiny, controlled power. It flails against the open void.

She opens them again. "There's no artifact. There's nothing here."

Avett clicks his tongue and looks away. Then he flops onto his back and groans.

Again. She exhales, closes her eyes and drips a golden dewdrop of her ether into the void. It ripples outward, forming waves in the deep, black waters. She opens her eyes again.

"We could walk for a bit," Lili suggests. "Maybe I'll find something then."

"This really is about seeing the barrier, huh."

—

Kashira's never been good with words.

Of course, this is expected of a girl who's been in a coma for the past three years. Socialisation and perpetual sleep don't tend to mix well, and even prior to her sleep had Kashira ever played the elusive role of wallflower. She's not a talker; she's an observer. A passive, iron-headed tool. A world ending weapon pointed at another country, only to be seen as a threat and not a possibility.

Which is why she's feeling like a fish out of water when Alexei asks her, powerful arms crossed and tensed, exactly what and who she is. He'd intercepted her in his study while she was on her way back into the Winnow for lunch.

"Sorry?" she asks.

"Who were you, before your involvement in Project Exodus?"

She presses her lips together. "I—I think that there are more pressing matters at hand than myself. What about the crew of the Winnow?"

Alexei watches the Hive from his floor-to-ceiling glass window. Below, several Humans are beginning to congregate with each other, forming three distinct groups—no, Kashira realises. Each of these groups contain a distinct leader that stands at the head of each group. These aren't groups, but gangs formed out of the necessity of survival.

He begins, "There are always more pressing matters. To wait for an appropriate time would be to waste precious seconds of it."

"Shouldn't you…?" Kashira points to the commotion outside.

He lets loose a soft laugh. "Oh, this? They do this often. It's an intimidation game."

"You should really go down there and stop them."

"There's nothing to stop." Alexei points to the leader of the leftmost group. "Ursula Cheng. Counts her unpaid debts with rolling heads and or crushed fingers. She's vicious and exacting, but I've heard on the grapevine that she has a weak spot; her biological child." He slides his finger over to the next group. "I suppose that it's obvious where the child's allegiances lie. Du Hua Cheng, consigliere of Albert Turmandy's clique. Ursula may be a clinical psychopath, but she draws the line at her child. She wouldn't dare lash out at Turmandy. They have some sort of uneasy alliance between them; any conflict tends to end in a pitiful stalemate before it even begins."

"What about the third group?" Kashira asks, clearly in awe. "Why don't they initiate?"

"The enemy of my enemy," he says, his intonation slow and steady, "is my friend. Would the third group stand a chance fighting against twice their manpower?"

The answer is no. Kashira glances out the window with her breath held, and sure enough, the conflict eventually dissipates into gentle crowds once more.

He asks again, "So who are you, Kashira?"

"Just some kid from Therius," she answers.

"Such a non-answer."

"I was a kid in my first year at the IRCI on an inter-realm school trip to Earth."

"Happy kids from Therius don't promise their lives to strangers and become overseers. I find your story rather difficult to swallow."

Kashira flinches at that. "I'm a happy kid," she tries to say, but the lie snags on the tip of her tongue, and she trips on her words like a left-footed dancer. She tries again: "I was happy."

Alexei tilts his chin, but says nothing more. She doesn't know why he's asking her all of this instead of probing around her head himself. Kashira continues to look outside the window.

Her thoughts are interrupted by someone slamming open the door to Alexei's private study. Ysh'vanna strides up to Alexei, her fists clenched stiffly by her sides.

"Alexei," she says, each word a careful balancing act on a knife's edge, "they just reopened A07's area for retrieval missions."

Kashira inhales quickly. Alexei's features turn stoic. "Did they mention where the dragon might've migrated to?"

"No. The IRC report left that part intentionally blank."

Kashira's learned during her scant time at the IRCI that the reports never skimp out on details, not unless they’ve something to hide… or something they’re not aware of.

In no time at all, they’re recasting the ward around the Winnow and flying back out to the Afflatus landmass. The vista remains as they had left it, a tangle of twisted roads now claimed by red and rusted sand. Ysh’vanna pops open a radar menu and slides it off to her side.

There isn’t a single dragonic reading in sight. Not even an artifact from an obscured building, though there hadn’t been much of those even before the IRC’s announcement. Most of the actions that they’d taken were complimentary of what scant information both Kata’lana’s research and their own observations had provided them with. If they’d known exactly where the artifact was, if the Palatable hadn’t tucked its treasures so deeply into a bygone warehouse, if only—

They crowd around the radar. Kashira’s hands are clammy and her breathing hardly comes naturally at all.

She asks the obvious: “Where did it go?”

Kata’lana adjusts her glasses. “If I had just acquired a hefty rarity, I would want to check on the integrity of it as well.”

“The Chasm,” Ysh’vanna finishes. She scrambles to bring up the ship’s inbuilt communicator. “It wants to meet with Lili and Avett. But couldn't the IRC trace it?”

“I don’t think ‘to meet’ is the right phrase,” mumbles Kashira.

“Or it might be.” Kata’lana turns to the rest of the crew with her back straight and her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. “Who are we to comprehend the will of the dragons?”

“That would be your job, Kata’lana,” says Alexei. "But, yes, she has a point. After all, it's not everyday someone's taken to the Chasm. Or any day, for that matter."

Kata'lana continues, "If the Palatable wanted to consume your friends, it would've done so right there and then in its nesting grounds. Why break tradition now? Why go through the effort of transporting two live mammalians into the Chasm?"

"Dragons can maim without killing us," retorts Ysh'vanna. "Just because it's not death, doesn't mean it's instantly good news. And coming from an A rank—you know, the definitive apex predator—I'd hardly expect anything good. As it stands, they don't exactly have the best track record for being saints."

Kata'lana only props up her glasses again and looks elsewhere. Conflict and debate must not be her forte, muses Kashira. She's seeing a little bit of herself in the prickly scientist, and it's comforting to be among one of her own.

As if her silence was confirmation, Ysh'vanna takes this opportunity in the conversation to call Lili's Glasslink. It takes several tries to get through, but once she does, she relays all that she knows to the two frontliners.

Avett's voice crackles through the speakers first. "So is it a meeting or a dining, because I'm getting mixed signals here, Ysh'."

"Keep your wits about you. Come to your own conclusions. Don't engage if you're unsure of its intentions." She swallows, then adds, "But prepare for a dining first before you prepare for any potential diplomacy."

He sucks a breath in through his teeth. "Riiight."

Kata’lana shifts her balance from one foot to the other. “My previous proposal still stands. It’s far more likely that your encounter will be peaceful.”

Ysh’vanna turns and braces a hand against the back of her seat. Her face is incredulous as she regards the scientist. “You told my frontliners what?”

Kata’lana falters. “I told them that, should they encounter the Palatable, no harm would come out of it.”

“Why would you say that?”

She falters again. The Draconian captain continues to stare her down, but Alexei steps in, his gait as smooth as heated butter.

"We could all use a bit of morale, no?" he says. "And truthfully, you seem more agitated than the rest of us.”

“You do appear to be inflating this far more than what is necessary, Ysh’vanna,” says Auren gently.

“Me?” The captain coughs. “I’m rightly overreacting, thank you! What else are you telling my frontliners, that they’re fucking invincible? They’re made out of skin and bone, not iron!”

“Ysh’vanna, I place my full faith in Lili to do the right thing—” begins Auren.

“That’s Captain O’Raal. I’d better not catch you referring to the captain without her title, Draksparrow.”

Silence befalls the cockpit. In an act of pure desperation, Kashira looks to Alexei for help, only to find that his chin is once again tilted to the side, and that his eyes are as thoughtful as ever. He's seeing her memories, she realises. He sees what makes Ysh'vanna tick the way she does.

Finally, Avett's voice comes through again. "We're professionals, not kids, Ysh'. If A07 looks even the slightest bit hungry, we'll make sure to run."

She sighs, and she smooths a hand over the stitching of her shorts. "Right. Right. Sorry. Good luck, frontliners. Transmission over."

The feed cuts.

Kashira tries to think of something to say, anything, but the captain leaves her seat and heads for the door quickly, her boots echoing into the flooring like clockwork. Kata'lana and Alexei excuse themselves next, and before long it's just her and Auren left in the pilot's chamber.

The Eldrakian scares her a bit, if she's being honest.

She gives him a wry smile to his tight-lipped frown. Then she slips out the entrance and down the front stairs, back into the safety of Alexei's spare sun room.

26: the aura

Searching for Avett in this strange, new location proves easier than imagined; his deep blue jacket stands out like a sore thumb amidst the sea of concrete chunks. She recalls the blob of white flesh taking root against the flooring back in the warehouse, and she heaves a sigh of relief when she confirms that there’s nothing of the sort stuck to Avett’s skin.

But then she turns him around, and she sees the patch of dark, spreading liquid on his back. She swallows.

A hiss slips out of his mouth. He clenches down on it afterwards in an attempt to hide his pain from Lili, but the damage has already been done. Lili kneels and reaches around, her breath catching in her throat as Avett shakes his head and half-heartedly attempts to bat her hand away.

"I'm fine, it’s not blood," he says. She's not touching him, not yet, but he's still reacting to her proximity by jerking away from her hands and into her body. He’s not fine, and it’s blatantly obvious.

"Your voice cracked," she points out.

Avett exhales upwards, but he doesn't have enough strength to blow his bangs out of his face.

Without wasting another second, she turns around and eases him onto her back. She's brought onto her knees almost immediately; any attempts of picking herself back up are met with strained muscles and shaky legs. Avett isn't even that heavy—in fact, he weighs less than her. She's seen his files.

What's worse is that he's not bothering with a snappy quip at her lack of fitness or even a stupid laugh. He's breathing shallowly at her back instead, so shallowly that he's already taken ten breaths in the time that she's taken four. She grits her teeth.

"Don't worry," Lili says. "Auren's gonna fix you right up. We're going back now. Just hang in there."

Avett mumbles something in response.

Lili lets her ether flare to life in the pit of her stomach before she sends it careening throughout her entire body. It sends wave upon wave of sickly sweet energy through her limbs, and she's up and running across the road again in no time. She’s running like she's been forced into a ball for her entire life, and she's only just relishing the other parts of her body now.

She’s not thinking straight. She doesn’t even know where they are.

The farmland smudges past her, and the mountains in the distance crawl by. It feels like she's inhaling spikes of iron into her lungs instead of air, and if she keeps it up she'll end up piercing through the skin of her throat. Her muscles aren't doing so well either, and neither is her mind; where is she running to? Does she have somewhere to go other than a vague "anywhere but there?"

Avett mumbles something again. Lili recognises it immediately. Her name.

She rests him upright against the road. His eyes are squinted and unfocused, and his grip on her shoulders is light. He's hardly there at all.

Her heart hammers in her throat. "Avett," she says. She hates how her voice pitches at the end, hates how she could've said anything and yet had chosen to say his name, but she swallows down her bile. "What should I do?"

He glares at her in pure, unadulterated annoyance. Lili shrinks back.

"Left pocket," he says. He jerks his hip at her to emphasise his point.

She reaches in and retrieves a small, hard-backed bag. Unzipping it reveals a literal smorgasbord of tubed creams and bandages. She feels a little stupid for running now.

Lili is about to twist off the cap of a random tube when she realises that they all serve different purposes. The one she's got right now is for burns. The one next to her other hand is for ethereal burnout. She gulps.

"Which one?" she asks.  

Avett groans. He reaches into the pile, takes out a clear tube, and smacks it into Lili's hand. She looks down—a natural aura dispeller. She squeezes out a pea-sized blob of it on her finger, and finds that it smells like she's just been punched in the nose. Once the initial shock of the scent hits her, it dissipates into something less offensive.

Her partner jerks awake as well. With renewed strength, he seizes her hand by the wrist and guides it under his singlet. Lili has to stop herself from flinching back, though it doesn't take much self control to do so—Avett's grip is iron-tight and vicious.

He presses her to his bare back. Holds her there.  

"A-Avett—" she stammers.  

"You can think about fucking me," he says, with his voice cracking like splintered wood, "when I'm not in severe pain."

She rubs uneasy circles into his back in silence, making sure to move slowly, though he hisses again anyway. Leave it to her field partner to crack jokes while half dead.

“Is this ok?” she asks.

“Good.” He’s gone completely limp in her hands now.

Lili looks at the road in front of her. It spans for eons in a straight line, and though the surrounding farmland has started to seep into the gravel and the paint has started to fleck, it shows no signs of further wear. No cracks, no lumps, no bruises. The road goes on forever.

But what strikes her as peculiar is the sky. There are paper-thin lines of light that streak through the air, arching and curving in a way that makes Lili feel like she's inside a glass dome looking out. It reminds her of the ward they made back on the ship.

Avett pushes away from her. He’s steadied his breathing again, but his eyes focus elsewhere. He looks like he’s stuck between two states of consciousness, neither passing out or awake.

“What should we do?” she asks.

He scowls. “Wait for the ointment to work.”

"Will it take long?"

He doesn't reply. Instead, he draws his knees up to his chest and groans into his lap.

Then he starts talking again. "You're hopeless."

"You were unresponsive." Lili doesn't look up from the ground. "I didn't know what to do with you."

He curls into himself even further and mutters a brief ‘thank you.’

“You’re… welcome.”

He snorts and passes a transparent slide of glass towards Lili. Her GlassLink—She must’ve dropped it somewhere on the way.

Meanwhile, Lili’s still shaking from the ordeal of it all. She checks her GlassLink; the ship’s blip is nowhere in sight.

“Where are we?” she asks to the sky.

“Beats me. This is your world. Figure it out.”

She surveys the surrounding farmlands, the tufts of non descript bushes that line the roadside. "Looks way too hot here to be Austra—the Afflatus landmass."

"Mhm. Keep talking."

"I—I'm gonna call the ship. What should I say?"

Avett doesn't respond.

Lili doesn’t like looking at him when he actually looks his age, but she offers him a glance anyway just to check on him.

Her eyes widen. The patch on his back is… smouldering. Was it smouldering while they were running? He doesn’t look that great.

She crawls over to check on his wound, but she finds that her eyes slip over his back like oil on ice. She can’t quite focus on him, can’t quite remember what he looks like until he starts to hiss in pain again. He’s saying something—the two staccato syllables of her chosen name. Lili.

Panic spikes through her skull.

Moving towards him is like moving her body in molasses. She grabs his shoulders; they're trembling like leaves in the wind. Like he might blow away at any second.

“Avett,” she says. “What’s happening to you?”

He clutches at the sides of her arms wordlessly. His nails are starting to dig through her caster’s cape, and his teeth are chattering like he's been caught in a snowstorm. For once, he’s scared. Properly scared, like he’s all too aware of the multiple ways his body could break. Lili is also aware.

She drags her focus to the wound. It’s glowing around the edges, but she can’t tell if that’s because she’s straining her eyes or if it’s because of the dragon. The patch is darker around the centre, like he’s bleeded out into the fabric of his jacket. He hasn't, but Lili's not so sure anymore—she can hardly look at him without tearing up from exertion.

He’s not wrong. He might really die here.

She skims her hands over the surface of his jacket. Avett groans out loud, presses his head to his chest, and butts her body hard enough to send her teetering onto the flats of her palms.

“Avett.” She flexes her fingers inside their gloves and reaches for him again. “I’m going to heal you.”

Avett doesn’t have the strength to complain. Lili has never healed anything before, and she’s not willing to start experimenting on her partner on such short notice. She’s not even sure if she can heal him, what with his ether circulation being so out of sync with the rest of his highly trained body. He’s unfit as hell in there—she’s sure that she’ll end up hurting him more if she tries.

But she has to try.

The blood in her fingertips feels like it'll burst out of her skin at a moment's notice. It's then that she realises her ether is reacting to the wound.

She looks down at her hands. The world seems to shift around them, rippling away from her skin like she's dipped herself into a body of clear water. Everything is starting to click into place. The globe. The village. If she could replace the dragon's aura in his body for something else, something harder and stronger, she could forgo healing him altogether.

It's a bandaid solution over a deep, gushing laceration, and she has no idea of what'll happen to Avett later, but until they get back into contact with the ship, it's all she's got.

Avett says something again, and Lili realises that she can't recognise his voice anymore. It sounds like there are hundreds of children shouting to her, and yet it also sounds like he's another person. A woman. A man. A boy. Lili doesn't know because she's forgotten the way his voice sounds already. She places two hands against his back and remembers the way the globe had stretched its aura over the entire village, hugging it snugly within a fishnet crafted from the stars. She's seen her aura, and she's not made out of stars. It's hot, it's harsh, and if she breathed it in she would never stop coughing.

She sends a fine smoke of ether into the small of his back and allows it to spread down his spinal cord.

Avett screams. In his normal voice.

Lili steadies him again. She doesn't know what to do, but she has to keep going. She offers a shoulder to him. "Bite down, if it helps."

He obliges. And he obliges hard.

It's not the best course of action, Lili soon realises, because Avett is strong enough to chew right through her bones. She has to pump ether into herself to keep him from doing so, and even then she's unable to completely stop him from drawing blood. And also, it hurts. A lot. But it's nothing compared to what Avett is going through now.

Every second spent holding him is a second spent in suspended agony. Avett is clutching onto her body, and his Kattish strength is causing him to nearly cave in her ribcage. The only thing keeping her body from collapsing outright is the steady circulation of ether that she's sending into both of their bodies. She can feel his nondescript reservoirs against the clumsy violence of her own, can feel the way he hurts through each sharp inhale and each whimpering exhale. His pain reflects itself in her own body like a bloody, cracked mirror.

She's breathing Avett. No—that's not quite right. He's breathing through her, and she's just along for the ride.

Eventually, he loosens his grip and stops biting into her shoulder. His breaths are coming in shuddering waves, and his hands are holding the sides of his arms like he's cradling himself to the beat of a silent lullaby. He spits out her blood onto the dirt and stares at it for far, far too long.

"Avett?" she asks.

He shakes his head, takes several, grounding breaths. Lili doesn't know if she's meant to hug him or not, or if he'd even like being hugged by someone like her. She tugs at a stray seam on her sleeve instead.

He shakes his head again. "Hold me. Please hold me. I don't care if it's you."

Lili reaches out and holds him by the shoulders stiffly. He lets out a soft grumble and barrels himself into the rest of her body.

They spend some time like that. Lili doesn't know how to tell him to get off her chest, or if she'd like him to get off her chest in the first place. This is uncharted territory and she's a kid that's managed to wander into the unknown. She'd pretty much embraced him earlier, but now that the danger's passed she feels like a deer caught in the headlights.

With a cheek pressed into her sternum, Avett says slowly, "I'm Avett Ironsturm, and I can't stand the taste of bread crusts."

Lili watches him pull away and stare at his hands. He balls both of them into fists and begins to count out loud, flicking his fingers upwards with each number. When he reaches the end, he balls both of them into fists again and starts over. He does this about two more times until he's satisfied.

He may be too far gone.

"What are you doing?" Lili asks.

Avett swallows. "IRC surefire memory loss examination and rehabilitation. It helps to ground you by trapping your mind in a cyclic thought process." He lowers his hands. "Cognitive observation of your hands is stronger than the remains of any aura. It… doesn't work if you've already been caught. Just helps you deal with the aftermath. You might be free, but you're still scared. And lost. The counting helps with that. Better to be trapped in your own thoughts than… something else's."

The silence is uncomfortable.

"Do you think about anything else while you're counting?" she asks. There's no way he's distracted just from counting.

He looks away. "Yeah. My mom."

"Oh."

He pulls a leg to his chest. "I look and act like the kind of person to have mommy issues, don't I."

Lili opens her mouth to deny it, but Avett catches her hesitation. "Nah. It's true. You're right. You deserve to know the truth."

She adjusts her posture. She knows—or at the very least, has the suspicion—that Avett's family isn't quite as happy as he makes it out to be. She just wasn’t aware that the degree of his fallout spanned realities and social circles.

"She's a nightmare. She left my family—my dad—in shambles. Everyone and their grandma knows her as this celebrated hero or whatever she goes by nowadays. No one cares about the truth; they know what she is. We changed our surnames, we became more Ironsturm than Earlstone, but to everyone else we're still the family that the “Lion Lady” ruined. I realised that in the noodle canteen with Hilli’na. That nothing's changed."

"You can't stand it," Lili says.

"If she's some bigshot A ranked arms specialist, then I just have to be better." His copper eyes stay fixed to the horizon, and his hands tighten into fists. "Earlier, I said that I accepted Alexei's request for the monetary benefits, that I wanted to own a house." He snorts. "That was a lie. My mother is why I'm here. She's my anchor. And what better way to make a name for myself than to go big?"

She trails her finger through the dirt. There's nothing she could say that would possibly make him feel any better. She would know.

The road before them has darkened into a dark mauve; they've missed the sunset entirely. Avett picks himself up and helps Lili to do the same.

"Food," Avett says. "Send a text to the Winnow now, and we'll call them for real once we've found shelter."

"Right." She does as he says.

After scouring the farmlands for leftover vegetables and foragables, she meets with Avett on the porch of a particularly dilapidated farmhouse. The floorboards have rotted in various areas, leaving patches of holes in the flooring. There's a wicker-basket chair in the corner; the cushioning has long since moulded over, and one of the legs has collapsed on itself. It's a miracle how it still stands.

Lili takes all of her findings and dumps them into the kitchen sink. There's a half-rotted turnip, several smooth oyster mushrooms, and a couple of barely sprouted potatoes. Avett manages to get the fireplace going while she prepares the vegetables for cooking. When she goes to chop the head of the rotted turnip, she winces instead and her knife stays lodged halfway through. Her shoulder is throbbing again.

Carefully, she makes her way over to the fireplace and sits on the rug next to Avett. He eyes her wound with curiosity.

"You bite hard," Lili mumbles. She slides off her caster's jacket and winces again. There's a neat crown of red spots on her shoulder, and each of those spots is dribbling blood over her shoulder and into the carpet.

"Why the hell did you let me bite your shoulder, of all things?"

She's about to shrug when she remembers the state her shoulders are in. Mustering up the rest of her strength, she clutches a hand to her bite wound and pumps hot ether into her veins.

"Do you need a dressing or anything?" he asks.

Lili lifts her hand from her shoulder, expecting the wound to resume gushing or to be open. She's greeted with the sight of dried blood and marked skin, as if someone has bitten her only lightly on the shoulder. She glances back up at Avett.

"I guess not," she says.

He doesn't answer, choosing to stare at her shoulder instead. Then he unzips one of his pockets and fumbles around until he's got some sort of disinfectant wet wipe in his hand. He touches it to her skin.

"It's not going to scar, is it?" he asks.

Lili shrugs. "I didn't even expect it to heal—I did a pretty bad job of patching myself up. So it probably will. Why?"

The question makes Avett flinch back. "Why what?"

"It's just a scar. I've got worse, and you've probably got even worser."

He drops the wipe and feathers a gloved hand over the bite. "It's not… just a scar if I gave it to you. With my own mouth. I… uh."

It's subtle enough for Lili to almost miss it, but Avett looks like he's about to pull her into some sort of embrace. Two hours have passed since their encounter with B15; she wonders if he's still delirious from it, or if he needs more medical attention. There's something different in the way that he regards her now—it's like he's starting to feel guilty for the things he's never had to feel guilty for.

"If you're feeling responsible, don't be. I chose this shoulder. I'd give it to you again if I had to."

"Lilith—"

She pulls away and returns to the kitchen. The knife is still lodged in the turnip. "Forget how I feel. What about you?"

She presses down on the handle with the rest of her strength. The rotted head of the turnip rolls off the cutting board and into the sink, leaving only the healthy white flesh behind.

Avett sighs. "I feel fine. Better than fine, actually."

"Do you remember what I did with the globe back in the village?"

"'Ish."

"I did the same thing with you. I managed to overpower the aura that was already inside you with my own, weird, half-dragon overseer aura. If that's… even a thing." She dices the potatoes into neat, smooth cubes. "Every aura has an effect, and I don’t think I’m an exception. There's no saying what'll happen to you."

He snorts. "I don't feel so bad about chewing into you now."

"Be serious."

"In fact, I'll probably do it again. Where do you want to be bitten, princess?"

Lili brings a pot full of sloshing water to the fireplace and hangs it there. Then she takes out her travel-sized box of cooking supplies and drops a slice of bouillon into the pot. It bobs on the surface for a bit, like a malformed boat, then sinks to the bottom.

Then she lifts a finger to Avett's mouth.

"...What?" he asks.

"You asked where I wanted to be bitten," she says. "I want to be bitten here."

"It—" His face goes red. He laughs it off a second later. "It wasn't serious."

She draws her finger back and drops the vegetables into the pot. That slight aversion of his eyes is what lets Lili know that she’s won this round. She takes her seat next to Avett in front of the fire.

“Don’t say you want to bite me then.”

The pot comes to a pattering boil. Avett makes a face but he doesn’t recoil, though he does adjust his legs in discomfort.

"Give me your GlassLink," he says. His tone's demanding, but his eyes are averted. “I’m calling the ship.”

"Gonna bite this too?" She unlocks it and hands it over.

"Shut up." Without hesitation, he selects a number from the call registry and places her GlassLink face up on the ground—there are numerous missed calls, no doubt all from Ysh’vanna earlier. "Bad joke."

The phone rings once. Twice. Lili holds her breath in anticipation, as if their captain isn’t waiting at the navigation panel with her own bated breath and her hand hovering over the answer button. She picks up after the third ring; her voice is muffled and weary, and Lili has no idea of how much time has passed but she’s sure that the hours can’t be good back in New Zealand.

“Hello?” she asks. “Sitrep?”

“I’m alive,” Avett replies. “I fought off the aura. We’re both safe.”

Lili hears a sigh of relief from the other side of the call. Then Ysh’vanna adds, “Thank the fucking stars. Things really took a turn for the worse, huh?”

“Oh, so you’re glad I’m alive now?”

A snort. “Always have been.”

Avett shuts up quickly. Lili takes this opportunity in the conversation to ask, “Ysh’vanna, do you happen to know our current location?”

“Ah…” Her voice falters. “About that. Yes, but you’re not going to like this.”

The two frontliners share a tentative glance before Avett demands, “What aren’t we gonna like, Cap?”

“We managed to trace your call—we’ve got a pretty good idea of your current location,” begins Ysh’vanna. “The problem… is that. Your current location. Somehow, you’ve managed to make it past the boundaries of the Chasm.” She falls silent and sighs.

Lili asks, “The Chasm?”

“Stars—if I knew this was going to happen,” says Ysh’vanna, “I wouldn't've agreed to this in the first place.”

Lili looks to Avett for an answer, but his face remains pale and still. Eventually, he taps the GlassLink and brings up a holographic map of the Earth.

She blinks. She blinks again. It’s like someone’s grabbed her lungs and wrung them completely dry of air. Her fingers reach out and trail across Brisbane’s coastline, down to Melbourne’s cranny, then upwards to the Queensland expanse.

That’s it. That’s all that’s left of Australia. A sliver of land; all that remains of Australia’s central mass is a smattering of islands left untouched by whatever had destroyed the world six years ago. And that’s not even the worst of it—North America is completely gone, and in its place is a crater filled in by sea water. The horn of Mexico leads nowhere, and what appears to be what remains of Canada lies malformed and incomplete.

Avett points to the area above a larger landmass—it takes a moment for Lili to recognise this landmass as Africa. This continent’s not as bad as some of the others, but Africa’s shape has been irreversibly altered to the point where it no longer resembles an upside-down triangle. As for the place he’s actually pointing to, well…  

His voice is barely a croak. “Did this place mean anything to you, Lilith?”

“The United Kingdom,” she answers. It hasn’t changed a bit. “Not… really?”

“It’s the Chasm now. A ranks do this every time they Migrate; they select a landmass, they decimate an entire population's worth of civilians, then they encase it, patch up the place with ether so nobody can interfere with whatever it is they do in here." He circles around the island in a spiral and stops in the centre. “Somehow, we’re here.”

“How?”

Ysh’vanna begins to speak again. “The million credit question. The dragons use it as their own 'domain,' protecting their valuables by ensuring that the dominant species of any given realm can't enter the area… nor leave.”

Lili coughs. “What?”

“They don't live here," Ysh'vanna hastily says, "So you shouldn't have to worry about any attacks. But I’ve only heard of constructs and plant material being taken, not people.”

“So in other words, we’re treasure,” Avett finishes.

For a moment, nobody says anything. The fire crackles, the water in the pot comes to a rolling boil, and Lili goes to pour in a bucket of cold water to bring the liquid back to a gentle simmer.

“Forget the artifact,” her partner says. “How do we get out?”

“I…” Ysh’vanna falters. “I’m working on that part. We all are, Auren, Kashira, Alexei and Kata’lana. And this is something we want to avoid bringing up to the IRC, but if push comes to shove…”

Lili swallows, and Avett stiffens beside her. The outcome would prove to be less than stellar if the IRC's law enforcement ever caught wind of their exploits, no doubt about it. They would perhaps derank them, or even strip away their licenses for a while as punishment.

"Stars." Avett rubs a hand over his face. "Could give us some good news next time, Ysh'."

“Oh, absolutely," Ysh’vanna chirps. “Guess who’s an officially registered resident of Therius? No more tax fraud!"

The 'good news' sinks in like a bag of bricks that's just hit the water.

All of this won’t matter if they never make it out of the United King—the Chasm alive, but Lili refrains from speaking out of line. Avett mutters something quietly under his breath, and judging from the way he spits it out, Lili thinks that it might be some Casa-Ilgashian profanity.

“So what now?” he asks eventually. “Sit tight and wait for rescue?”

Ysh’vanna hums in response. “Basically. Heard something boiling back there—looks like the food in the Chasm hasn’t gone bad yet… well, most of it anyway.”

“There’s an entire ecosystem here,” Lili says. “We shouldn’t be going hungry.”

“Delicious.” Their captain laughs. “Alright, just hang in there guys. Get some rest if you can. I’ll be checking in on you guys in around eight hours, so make sure to be up by then. “

They say their goodbyes. The holographic display dissipates into voxels, and the room grows a little darker. Lili scoops the soup into two old, ceramic bowls, and hands one over to Avett.

“Cheers,” she mumbles. “Sorry if it doesn’t taste like much.”

The fire crackles again.

“I’ll take the rug tonight,” says Avett. “The couch is yours.”

—

The two end up sleeping for only six of those aforementioned eight hours. Lili surmises that it's around five in the morning from the way the apex of the sun just grazes the horizon line. They briefly sort out their luggage and head out.

On the other side of the pines lies another straight highway—Lili opts to go through that forest while snatching up any miscellaneous edible mushrooms on the way there. Avett is trailing her like an aimless kid at the supermarket, only because he doesn’t have anything better to do, and because he’s got no idea how to forage. He doesn’t know his chanterelles from his jack-o’-lanterns, and Lili’s not about to let him go off and gorge himself on poison for breakfast.

Once they’re in the thick of the grove, Avett says, "You mumble in your sleep, Lilith.”

"And you moan," Lili replies. He doesn't, but she's going to do whatever it takes to keep Avett's ego down, lest he try to redeem himself from yesterday's blunder.

It's no use—he soldiers on anyway. "Are my moans sexy or cute?"

Lili shields her eyes and squints into the distance. Growing in clusters on a log is a brilliant display of orange shell-like fungi—chicken of the woods. "They're obnoxious."

"Rest assured, I'm not faking anything."

She waves a hand at Avett; it takes a hot second for Avett to realise that she’s asking for his knife. He hands it over.

"Might want to take a bath and get that checked out. You seem a bit too old to be having wet dreams."

Avett coughs. "Wet dreams are normal no matter what your age is."

"So you had—"

"No, I didn't, dick." He looks away with a scowl. "You make the sexual tension in the air rocket down into the negatives."

Lili grins to herself; it's two to zero. Then she struggles with the opening mechanism on the knife to no avail, and it’s suddenly two to one when Avett has to help her flip it open.

She cuts away at the mushrooms in silence. Her partner doesn’t have to say anything to assert his dominance; she can already feel him staring daggers into her back without having to look.

With their pockets filled with mushrooms, the two of them make their way out of the forest and count their yield by the curb. Avett handles his mushrooms with shaky hands, like he's afraid one might give him a nasty infection if he breathes in too much of its spores.

"Avett," Lili says, "it's not going to kill you. They're safe."

"Big talk coming from someone who can't get poisoned," he mumbles, but he manages to still his hand. "But I guess it figures that the guy who lived by herself in a shack for six years would know every mushroom by heart."

"I was only alone for three of those years," corrects Lili. "I wasn't immune to poison before that."

He thumbs through a cluster of gilled mushrooms, eyeing up their pristine skins, before saying, "Yeah, well, I was trying not to bring that part up."

"It's been three years. I'm over it."

Avett gives her a look.

She adds hastily: "Mostly."

Struck by a foul sense of shame, Lili continues to count; she counts at twenty mushrooms before she's satisfied with her yield. Normally she'd consider such a large bounty to be superfluous and unsustainable—nothing would grow back if she always took this much—but today marks an extreme exception. And any unwarranted guilt is immediately washed aside by the sheer amount, the sheer quality of the things she's managed to forage. The smell of dirt and organic material is more than enough to make her uncontrollably giddy. She collects a few dandelion leaves that have managed to worm their ways through the cracks in the pavement before they make their way back to the homestead, satisfied.

Lili's halfway through making her sauteed mushroom specialty when Ysh'vanna calls again. To no one's surprise, it's Alexei's voice that comes through the speaker. Judging from his tone, he must be well aware of their circumstances already.

"I believe that it would be safe to say that none of us saw this outcome," he begins. Each syllable is tapered, as if he's ashamed of himself. "I apologise for the lack of foresight."

It's not his fault, but neither Lili or Avett call attention to this. However, Ysh'vanna doesn't hesitate to buckle down and start digging into the overseer.

"Did you know what my frontliners were going to walk into?" she snaps. "Was this, at all, even the slightest amount, a possibility?"

Kata'lana's voice rings through the speaker, clear and monotone. "Dragons have never taken the dominant species of any realm to their treasury before. We weren't even aware that B rank mammalians could exist inside their domain. Romanov is correct; this outcome was unprecedented."

"I don't get it." Avett rocks back and forth with his knees to his chest; it's clear that, if not for Lili's presence, he would be breaking down on the spot. "So we're not meant to be here? We were taken by accident?"

"No other explanation," says Alexei. "However, that may be your only way out."

He lets the proposition hang in the air like a thick cloud of vapor. Lili shuffles uncomfortably.

"The way out is in," she mumbles.

"Correct, and therefore, you must make contact with the dragon that transported you here," Kata'lana finishes. "It will be back soon to check on its yield; you best be ready to confront it when that happens."

Avett slams his hands against the hardwood flooring. "No. No. A thousand fucking times, no. Why would you even suggest something like that? We just got out of one fucked up situation, now we have to go into another—and for what?"

"The dragon at best," Lili says slowly, her words hollow and afraid, "might see us as an accident. It might try to transport us back out of the realm…"

She doesn't have to explain the other outcome. Lili swallows, then asks, "Is that right?"

"Bang on the nail, unfortunately," says Alexei. "There is no other way; what brought you in here is your only ticket out. You have nothing to lose—unless you want to live the rest of your lives out in the idyllic English countryside."

Voices can be heard on the other side of the receiver. Lili can only imagine that it's Ysh'vanna and Auren chewing out Alexei for making such a crude joke. Eventually, the argument begins to fade away, and Kata'lana's comforting drawl comes through the GlassLink again.

"I wouldn't worry about your safety," she says flatly. They’re about to object when she adds, “Let me finish.”

Avett coughs. So does Lili.

"I heard about what you did to the Kattish male, Lili."

A good few seconds pass until Lili realises that she's referring to the incident with Avett. "He'll be fine, right?" she asks. "With my, uh, a-aura, inside of him—"

Avett spits, "It's ether, not cum."

“C-cum—”

 Kata’lana says again, “Only if you want him to die. Or suffer. Personally, hate emotional pseudoscience, but it all comes down to how you’re feeling at the right moment.”

The frontliners fall silent. Lili swallows a ball of air that’s large enough to make her throat hurt.

“She could kill me?” Avett slowly raises a finger at Lili. “At any moment?”

“Technically, anyone could. She’s just got one new way to off you now, I guess.”

He grips the GlassLink with both hands and hisses into the receiver, “How do we get her out of me.”

“It’s ether, not ejaculate,” Kata’lana says. Lili can practically hear her rolling her eyes through the connection.

“Cum doesn’t kill people!”

“It’s not like she’s trying to kill you right now. Dragons exist to assert their presence on the food chain; the girl probably doesn’t. Again, not quite my area of expertise, but I think that she would have to be thinking incredibly hard to kill you with her thoughts alone.”

"It's weird," he continues, "I don't want some weird killing juice—from her—inside of me. Period."

"That 'weird killing juice' is what'll keep you alive when you inevitably encounter the Palatable again. A ranks and S ranks aren't territorial; in fact, they tend to form sudden alliances in times of great strife. These dragons would prefer to avoid conflict where possible, and so fights between A ranks have rarely been observed, much less have occurred."

"But we're not dragons," Avett begins. Then he side eyes Lili. "Uh oh."

"Uh oh?" she asks, but she feels like she knows where this is all going.

"The biological definition of an A rank dragon, frankly, is quite loose. Schematics have ultimately narrowed it down to their innate ability to inject and cast their ether around their bodies to various effects. If you have the ability to cast an aura, you are considered an A rank."

"It won't try to kill us,” Lili says, “because… I’m a dragon.”

"Not all overseers have access to this incredible ability, Lili. You would be the first that I've ever witnessed."

Avett shakes his head. "There's no proof behind that claim though. It's just pseudoscience—baseless conjecture!"

"Well then, I think it's about time we provided that theory with some, let's say, concrete evidence.” The scientist’s monotone drawl dips into something lower, something more savage. “After all, what do you have to lose?"

25: the viscous

"On my count." Auren raises his hands into the air. Kashira and Lili do the same. "And… now."

Lili reaches out to the sky with her ether, crystallising it, weaving each hexagonal facet into a beehive formation. The shields click into place, flicker once in the harsh sun, then disappear from view. A testing wave of Auren's hand causes the wards to waver again, signifying that their shield remains solidly above them.

A week has passed since Alexei's heinous proposal to the crew of the Winnow, and now they're undertaking the very mission that had them up in arms about their futures in the first place. They've been practicing their shielding technique, and though it took some time to adjust to working with other casters, Lili feels like she's got the skill down pat. She takes one last look at the shield—or where she assumes the shield is—and heads back inside with Kashira. Auren stands on the deck, his concentration fixed wholly on maintaining the integrity of their wards.

"Nice work, casters." Ysh'vanna doesn't take her eyes off the navigation interface for a second. "It'll be about four hours before we reach our destination. Buckle up, grab a few drinks, do whatever.”

Lili follows her advice and cracks open the fridge. Her eyes immediately fall onto one of the side compartments where several cans of sweet beer lie in wait.

“Nothing alcoholic though,” Ysh’vanna adds. “That top shelf’s reserved for after the mission, not during.”

Kashira waves her hands profusely. “Oh, I wouldn’t think of it!”

"Wouldn't think of it." Lili picks her poison—a litre bottle of apple juice—and slams the fridge door shut.

A few hours pass without a hitch. Avett makes his way out of the engine room with an oil stained rag pressed against his gleaming forehead. He yells some technical jargon across the ship to Ysh'vanna, to which she responds with a confused notion of gratitude. The words that Avett speaks, sometimes, is a foreign language in itself, and Lili doesn't blame her captain at all.

In the following minutes, Lili leans against the window and observes the passing vistas. The Winnow is flying low enough for her to count the individual trees that have grown between the dimples of each street. Metal lamp posts—once proud knights standing guard against the dark—have crumpled down into crooked men, and their bodies have scabbed over with rust. The roads have been cracked like punched lips.

It's nothing new, Lili thinks. The Winnow passes more corporately stiff high rises, and when she peers inside through the shattered glass, she sees the evacuated bygones of various office cubicles. The papers have melted into the carpet, and the walls are green with fungi. Maybe something good came out of the Migration after all, because she can't see herself being willingly choked by a white collar while working her miserable way through a nine to five. She's never wanted to.

Every so often, Ysh’vanna clicks her tongue and sends a display hovering to her side. This screen shows an empty radar field, and once she’s observed enough of it, she sends it away again, exasperated. After five more repeats of this, she mumbles, “So we may have a problem.”

Around six hours have passed since they left the Hive’s region, and not once has Ysh’vanna requested for her crew to retrieve the artifact, if there is an artifact to be found at all.

"So what's the plan now?" Avett asks. He's leaning on a wall with his arms folded, but Lili knows that his confidence is all just for show—he's just leaning to keep himself from shaking like a twig in the wind.

Ysh'vanna chews on her thumbnail.  "Guess we've got no choice but to pilot the ship into one of these… nests." She motions to a nearby warehouse, and her voice turns grave "That particular building looks like a squeeze, but I'm sure I can make it. Getting tons of hits from that one."

At that, Avett immediately perks up. "No way. Send us in on foot, stars, maybe even abandon the mission—you're not piloting the Winnow through one of these death tubes."

"Concurred." As if on cue, Auren enters the ship; his hair and robes are tousled, but his features and stance remain absolutely still. "Now is not the time for aerial demonstrations, Captain O'Raal."

She grits her teeth. "Fine. We'll head close, check if there's a prominent draconic reading, and if all we're getting on the radar is artifacts then we drop our frontliners in. There's a chance it might be at one of its other nests, and I'm not giving that chance up."

Lili senses the softness in Ysh'vanna's eyes. From the looks of it, she might know a whole lot more about Avett's prior employment than she lets on, and she's compensating for that by offering to fly the ship through. Or it could be all a coincidence, because she assumes that no well-meaning captain wants to send their ill-prepared fighters into a death trap. Ysh'vanna especially.

Kashira says nothing. Auren nods at Ysh'vanna slightly before returning back to his post outside. Avett grips the material of his jacket and remains absolutely still.

And Lili… Lili doesn't know what to say to her friend, so she says nothing at all.

—

It's better to be slow and methodical than to scramble through a job, but Lili just wants to get the hell out of here. Behind her back lies an infinitely white exit; in front stands Avett—a pale, jittery mess of a man—and a yawning, gaping maw of a bygone warehouse.

They'd left Kashira on the ship despite her insistence to roam the warehouse with the two frontliners. There's a time and place for risks, Ysh'vanna had said, but this mission's already suicidal—we don't need to add another factor to this mess.

What she'd meant was, I'm tired of having to worry about more people. A pilot's job, as Lili's come to know from Avett's overtly epic retellings of his past crew, is to sit at the helm and bark orders from the comforts of their ship, but Ysh'vanna aspires to be more than just talk; she wants to be a tangible part of their safety. And so Kashira stayed on the ship.

"Just us two again, huh," Avett says. His voice warbles, rising a semitone above his usual pitch, and he coughs to stamp it back down. "I guess first dates could go a little worse."

Lili steps over a box of dusty, rusted nails. There's a lot of these lying around; she assumes that this place was once some kind of hardware store. The faded oranges and lackluster greens on the signs above each aisle suggest Bunnings.

She replies, "It's been worse."

"Oh, you tease…" He trails off and fixes his attention to his GlassLink's internal radar application. Nothing so far—nothing yet.

Lili gulps. All too suddenly, she's reminded of their first mission, of how Avett had presented himself as this jaded hero. He had been afraid of nothing, terrified of nothing but Lili's incompetence, and now he's just what he is: a raw bundle of nerves. A dog that bites the hand it feeds in order to appear stronger and bigger than his true form. A mess.

Lili's not sure about this vulnerability. She's downright terrified herself, and she needs a wall, a stoic body of support that'll push her back upright when she tries to lean on it. Avett's too kind.

She swallows a bubble of air. Avett checks his GlassLink again.

"What do you want the credits for, Avett?" she asks.

He jumps at the question. "Stars—I don't know. I don't even want the money at this point, honestly, but back then I was thinking…" He pauses, and his eyes avert to the side. "A house. I wanted to own property back on Therius. There."

Lili blinks. All this for a house? Maybe he's got priorities in disorder, or maybe the average Therian really, really values owning property. Whichever it is, his goal is both surprisingly shallow and mundane, but she doesn't bother with arguing against it.

Instead, she says, “You won’t really get to live in it, though. Not until you retire, or change careers…”

His ears flatten. “Look, princess, in these trying times, I'm scrabbling over any win I can get."

"That's true. A house is a house."

He stays silent. Then, his GlassLink begins to sound. A quick check of his screen shows a green bubble of activity to their left.

"Weird," Lili says. "I haven't felt the artifact yet."

Avett darts his eyes to the right. Lili looks with him, but aside from the odd metallic glint of spilled nails and toppled shelves, she can't see very far in the dark. And from the looks of it, neither can Avett.

He checks the radar again. The reading is gone.

He swears. "What the shit?"

"Maybe all the metal's blocking the signal," Lili suggests.

"If metal could fuck up the radar, we'd be dead a long time ago." Avett shakes his GlassLink and hits it into his palm to no avail. He swallows, observing the screen in an uneasy silence before heading off again.

"Wait," Lili says. "I think something might be wrong."

She waits for her partner to stop with bated breath, and thankfully, he does just that. He says, "State your case."

"This isn't right. I should've felt the artifact by now. Maybe it's not in this building—maybe it's somewhere else. We should go."

Avett gives his radar one last glance before swiping away to call Ysh'vanna. "Last call, Lilith. You sure there's nothing here?"

"The reading must've been a fluke, I'm sure of it."

While he waits for Ysh'vanna to pick up, Lili can't help but examine her surroundings again. It's been years since her last visit to a Bunnings, and simply being here is enough to dredge up all sorts of forbidden memories. Something is compelling her to meander further in, like a child smelling a sausage sizzle on the fizzy, summer wind.

She stops in front of a gated play area. Sitting on the astroturf, in all of its former glory, is a weathered-down plastic tower, and extending from this tower are a tangle of various slides. Lili can just about feel the friction burn from sliding down one of these things in shorts. When she goes to peer up one particular slide, she's greeted with a faceful of six-year-old dust. She backs off quickly and whips around, her cheeks flushed with both embarrassment and an oncoming sneezing fit.

Avett's still moping around with his GlassLink behind her; he's not far enough for Lili to start worrying, but if she wants to wander any further she'll have to leave his immediate vicinity.

She's not dumb enough to try that. But she'll be lying to herself if she tries to feign disinterest.

Carefully, she looks around the corner. There are mountains and mountains of nails lining each side of this aisle, so numerous in their density that Lili almost mistakes it for grey snow. A path has been carved through the centre of these nails, creating the image of a dried ravine.

Her stomach sinks. It looks like a body might've dragged itself through these nails. And from the girth of this path, she realises that the body might have been Human.

She steps closer. Her heart is pounding in her chest, her throat, but she can't look away now. She attempts to recall the A07's notes, but her mind is a blackboard scratched clean, and her head's starting to float away.

Lili follows the path. She traces it down to a kitchen display. The counters are foggy yet perfectly marbled with black and gold. Hanging from one of the range hoods sits… she squints, because she can't tell. Her eyes slip over the thing when she tries to look at it, like rain on plastic, and when she does get a good look at it, she can't put her finger on what it might be beyond a vaguely cocooned object. She rubs her eyes and tries to look at it again to no avail.

Before she can determine what the object might be, she's tackled to the floor by something—no, judging from the elbow sticking into her back, someone. She hears Avett grunt as he picks himself and Lili back up.

And then she sees it.

Bone white scales. A shulking central torso. Its legs are spindly yet corded, its skin tightly packed against its muscle. And those putrid, sun-bright vivid eyes.

"You're a fucking handful of shit, Lilith," Avett pants. He launches into a sprint, and Lili, though dazed and confused, follows suit. "We've gotta go, gotta get out—"

"How did it sneak up on me?"

“Fuck if I know!”

They skid around the corner. Lili feels her shoes squeal against the flooring. Behind them, a terrible wail—like the metal saws grinding against a thousand bones. Something clatters to the floor: steel beams. But when Lili snaps her head back, the dragon isn’t there anymore.

“Exit—where?” Lili asks.

Avett doesn’t respond. Judging from the way Avett is scanning the vicinity, Lili thinks that it’s safe to assume that he has no idea where the exit is either. She gulps; neither does she, but she’s been in a Bunnings before, so if she follows the natural flow of the depot they’ll surely, surely reach the entrance in no time.

She drags Avett another way. Between the shelves, down a lane of rotting saplings, through the matted overgrowth, and into the main area. She looks to her right—the cash registers sit in unending rows, unused and unmaintained over the years. The exit should be right here, she thinks, right underneath the sign that thanks you for shopping with Bunnings.

Except it isn’t.

All too suddenly, she’s reminded of the cocoon-like object hanging from the range hood, how she could hardly stand to look at it without losing her concentration to her surroundings. Her eyes slip off the area surrounding the sign, and for a moment she forgets what she’s here for—a startling cacophony of nails falling upon nails in the background grounds her again.

“The exit should be here,” she says, but even she’s starting to doubt herself. Looking at where the exit should be feels like she’s trying to walk on oil, to swim against a current reaching out to sea.

“Shit.” Avett is shivering. “Shit—no, there has to be another way out—”

“Avett,” Lili says. “I don’t know what’s in front of me. I can’t see it.”

He curses. His attention darts back to the aisles, then back to the sign. He curses again.

“This is,” he spits, his eyes tearing from exertion as he stares down the wall, “the last fucking time I listen to anyone tell me to go hunt down an A rank!”

And then he lunges out in front of him. His hand phases through the wall, and Lili sees him grab something—though she’s not sure what until he tears it away and tosses it to the side. It lands wetly behind them. She spares a glance. She wishes she hadn’t.

White, smooth flesh. It wobbles like gelatin before rooting itself into the ground and disappearing again.

Lili squeezes her eyes shut as she recalls Kata’lana’s notes. Each specimen is highly adaptable, and the specifics of their abilities vary to suit the demands of their environment. She’s glad Avett is here, because she wouldn’t have figured it out herself: that the dragon is the cause of their momentary confusion, that this Palatable has the power of perfect camouflage—no, not camouflage. To blend in with your surroundings is one thing, but to evade cognitive recognition is another thing entirely.

Her hands buzz with ether, and her wings rise to their full width. “Stand back, Avett.”

He shakes out his wrist and hisses. “I’ll watch your rear. Respectfully.”

Ether coils around her palms, and it takes a momentous amount of self control not to unleash that power into the wall right away. Instead, she allows it to coil tighter and tighter, until it feels like her hands might explode from the pressure alone. She takes a few steps back to keep herself out of the blast radius. A single blow is all that it will take.

She hears Avett yell something; a warning. His voice is muffled—all she can hear is the roar of her own gaseous ether, condensed like crystals in the palm of her hand.  

But her ether never leaves her fingertips.

A sharp pain reverbates from the base of her skull in icy waves—she stumbles, falters, and crashes to the floor, her eyes fluttering. The last things she registers is the hiss of Avett's breath against his bared teeth, the overwhelming sensation of being dragged under a torrent of viscous oil, and the fleeting moments of consciousness before the dark takes her in.

—

Ysh'vanna knows that money is the root of all evil, but even a fool wouldn't walk away from seven-fifty grand. Or maybe she's the fool all along—what kind of A ranking captain would willingly send their subordinate frontliners on a suicide mission? No, scratch that: what kind of person would give them the job in the first place knowing that they would inevitably fail?

Alexei. She clicks her tongue until the roof of her mouth goes numb. Alexei, Alexei, Alexei. Auren had told Ysh'vanna to trust him, that he wouldn't have sent his best chances of absolving the Migration to a suicide mission. Yes, Lili proves far too valuable to that man, and so is Kashira. He has his plan; he just isn't willing to indulge with them his elusive and luxurious secrets, not yet at least.

"You know, Auren," Ysh'vanna begins, with her eyes half drooping and her cheeks sinking into her hands, "I'm starting to think we were lied to."

"I dare not entertain the possibility," Auren replies. "If this is all a ruse to lure us to our deaths, he has spent a lot of time on this ruse."

Ysh'vanna exhales; her backline caster's just a bundle of optimism today, and though she normally accepts his grounded cynicism with open arms, even she's starting to think that it's a bit of a stretch.

"He's not a liar." Kashira stands abruptly. "He's a good person—he's tried to save me before, he can't be bad."

Forced him to save you with your affinity is more like it, Ysh'vanna thinks to herself, but she doesn't say that part out loud. The girl probably already knows, and she's just in denial. She's naive, not stupid.

She watches Auren patch up the ward again. His methods are languid yet systematic, and he folds the faces of the ethereal shell like he’s making delicate crepe flowers. He’s done this thousands of times, and has practiced a million times more. Meanwhile, all Ysh’vanna has to prove her money as a caster is a certificate proving the completion of her first year at Eulcred High, and a smattering of amateur spells any Gallian could cast with their wells fully depleted. She knows it's dangerous to compare captains and casters, that both are honorable professions with the same amount of utility on the field, but she can't help but think about the amount of money she's lost simply by being the captain of her own third grade ship. The credits she would have gained from being somebody else's backline caster fills her with both dread and restlessness.

A few minutes pass without much event. Auren slides back in and dusts off his hands before settling into a mug of cold tea.

Better nothing than something, she supposes. Then, feeling awfully lazy, she heads into the engine and starts doing part of Avett's job: maintenance.

Most of her knowledge regarding the inner mechanisms of the Winnow is based on instinct. Avett knows how a junction box might connect to the supercapacitors; Ysh'vanna only knows how to follow the red wires. They don't teach this stuff at the pilot's academy because 'that's the mechanic's job.' When it's a pilot's time to shine, they're judged on how well they can maneuver their craft and get the hell out of wherever they're trying to get the hell out of. Piloting is about making the skies your bitch, and maintenance is about being trapped in a tin box. Of course, these same rubrics don't consider the possibility of your frontliner and mechanic being one and the same.

Now wrenches are her tentative acquaintances, and she's learned to tolerate the stench of oil and steel. Ysh'vanna can commit herself to simple tasks, such as replacing the fuel rods and oiling the engines, but she wouldn't dare crack open a supercapacitor even to dust off its innards.

Once the fuel rods have been replaced, she swipes a wrist across her brow and prepares herself for the mentally gruelling task of checking the junction box for any fried cables. Thankfully, it's pristine in there—she can thank the mechanic for that.

It's a quarter to one when the Winnow's user interface automatically powers back on to receive a—her breath catches in her throat as she sprints up to the navigation panel. A red alert.

Not from Avett's GlassLink, but from an unnamed contact. The location is intelligible at a glancel. Ysh'vanna hesitates, then answers the call.

Avett's voice comes crackling in. "Ysh', we fucked up. The dragon found us."

Her stomach drops to the floor. "Captain O'Raal to frontliner Ironsturm—" she begins.

"Cut the formalities," he groans. "I'm dying, Lilith's out cold, and we—we've got no idea where we are. I’ve already applied the anti-aura ointment, and it’s working—just, it might be wearing off though. I’ll—I’ll try put more on later."

Ysh'vanna powers on the rest of the Winnow, allowing it to whirr to life under her hands. "Describe your surroundings. Stay conscious. We're coming."   

"No." Avett lets out a pained hiss. "I mean it. We're not… in the region. We're somewhere else. Lilith's GlassLink can't pick up where we are, and mine got crunched in the chaos. The dragon—fucked with the signal. Whole area… feels—"

Another seething gasp. Ysh'vanna leans into the communicator, as if she'll somehow send a warm embrace down the line if she does. "What do you mean, you're not in the region? Were you moved? Teleported?"

A shuffle of skin against cloth indicates that he's shrugged. "A ranks can do anything these days, huh?" he says.

"Stay on the line. Describe your surroundings."

"Road, long, straight, some grass and a shitty old fence." A pause. Then, "Shit, about staying on the line…"

"Describe the cloud patterns, maybe we're still in the same area—"

"No way," he mumbles. “Not a chance.”

He doesn’t elaborate any further after that. Ysh’vanna assumes that he’s fallen unconscious at best, and at worst…  She looks back to her crew, then back at the interface again.

“Ether,” she blurts out. “The dragon’s scrambled their signal, either intentionally or unintentionally, that’s why it’s not showing up on the display. But maybe we can untangle the data with ether. Communication technology’s all ether based, right?”

 “It is possible,” Auren answers. He leans into the navigation panel to get a closer look at what he’s working with. “I am rather garbage at handling machinery—I cannot promise that I will understand the contents of what I am untangling exactly, but I could give it a fair attempt.”

Ysh’vanna swallows. “That’s fine. Pass it over to me if you’re unsure after deciphering it.”

“Captain O’Raal, I apologise, but nothing would come out of it. To the untrained caster, ether samples are nigh intelligible to parse—”

He stops himself short. Ysh’vanna’s obstinate gaze is all she needs to convince Auren that she’s not as ‘untrained’ as she might seem. Despite herself, she cringes at his realisation; her rudimentary knowledge of ether is not something she’s willing to disclose often.

Then he nods. “Kashira, watch the ward.”

—

Dirt and dust.

Lili’s lips are coated in it. She drools a bit to catch the dirt with her saliva, then she spits it onto the ground. It lands on the hot asphalt between two bright yellow lines—road markings.

She launches herself backwards and immediately regrets it. Her head pounds with an unexpected ferocity, like she’s being punched with the light of a thousand suns. Once the pain subsides though, she’s in a state of shock.

Her surroundings have completely changed. Standing in the distance is a rusted transmission tower and several toppled utility poles. Tall pines straddle the sides of the road, their gnarled roots spilling out from underneath the grounds; the concrete has been hitched up in jagged chunks because of this. The grass lies in fields of gold on either side, their blades parched from dehydration; when Lili looks to the skies, she sees the sun, high and bright, like a summer star.

It’s been a while since she’s kept track of the date, but Lili knows that in New Zealand it should be winter right now. And yet the air here is hot enough to melt hair, and her shadows are harsh enough to cut skin. She sheds her cape instinctively and hooks it over her forearm.

Then her stomach drops. A single name races through her mind, and she scrambles to her feet.

Avett. 

24: the prep

A western standoff.

That's what this is, thinks Lili. Kashira on one side, the rest of the crew on the other. Auren's brows are crossed and his bottom lip is slightly jutting out, while Ysh'vanna's fingers are knitted and resting in front of her. Avett is standing with his arms folded; his attention is clearly elsewhere.

And the girl of the hour, Kashira Hellsborne, looks about as pale as a red-hued individual can get.

"My name is Kashira," she says with her eyes glued to the table. "My specialisation is casting, and I can do both front and backline, though I wasn't able to get my license before all of this happened…"

She gestures to the air vaguely, allowing her hands to waver for a split second too long before dropping them back to her sides. Lili tries not to grimace, but Avett catches her thinned-out lips anyway.

He shoots her a look. Just as bad as you, princess.

Lili isn't going to bother with giving him a second glance.

"That's fair." Ysh'vanna nods. "We could use a bit more manpower at the back."

Auren coughs. "I beg your pardon?"

The captain turns to her backline caster, her eyes filled with both apology and hard-set steel. "It'll be healthy for you in the long run, Draksparrow. You've always needed a helper back there."

He looks to Kashira, then leans into Ysh'vanna's ear and lowers his voice. "She is not Eldrakian, and I have gotten by with your presence quite fine."

"Keyword is by, Auren." Without a care for subtlety, she projects her voice over the table for the little caster to hear. "Now you'll have someone to watch your back and to teach in our downtimes."

Auren opens his mouth to object, but one more glare from Ysh'vanna sets him straight and silent.

"Moving on," she continues as she shifts that absolute gaze back over to Kashira. "The IRC's got a strict eye on who passes through Earth's inter-realm portals, and you don't seem to have a license. I'm not trying to accuse you of anything just yet, but how'd you get through?"

Doe-like eyes meet cold, hard steel. "School trip."

"S-school trip?" Ysh'vanna tips her head in incredulence.

"Yes."

She turns to her crew with a nervous chuckle. "They're letting kids go sightseeing on Earth now?"

Avett shrugs. "It's true. Visited in my second year."

Ysh'vanna sucks in a breath through her clenched teeth. Lili doesn't blame her. Earth is a hellscape that serves to remind the off-landers of what they could lose should they fail to defend their respective realms from the Migration—to bring vulnerable, young people to such a desolate world feels tasteless, like the equivalent of taking fourth graders to a slaughterhouse.

"Explains where our fifteen percent’s going,” Ysh’vanna mumbles, but her smile is sardonic. She lets the warmth reach her eyes once she notices the worry on Kashira’s features. “Don’t worry, you’re fine. It’s just housekeeping to know where our colleagues come from.”

“Colleagues,” Kashira says, coughing, “but I don’t have my license yet.”

Avett steps forward. “Neither did Lilith here. Plucked her right from a broken down shack in the middle of the Hive wilds. You’re far from unqualified, believe me.”

Lili expects the girl to heave a sigh of relief, but she fixes Avett with a genuine grin instead. “That’s amazing,” she says. “You’re all amazing.”

“Uh, right. Thanks.” It’s Avett’s turn to grimace now. It’s slight enough for Kashira not to notice, but obvious enough for Lili to know that something’s up.

Following Kashira’s initiation is a steaming platter of various Therian roots for lunch, of which the girl scarfs down with gusto. Midway through the meal she bites down on her tongue in her excitement, and though she tries to hide the accident, it doesn’t go unnoticed by Lili. She wonders how long it’s been since Kashira’s last, tangible meal. She wonders how she’s been fed for the past few years for that matter.

Lili doesn’t ask, because that would be rude.

After showing Kashira around the layout of the Winnow, Lili decides to mess around a bit before bed and to sit against the outer wall of the ship with her bottle of Gallian blue wine. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do with it—the liquor flows down her throat like she’s drinking hot sand, and the taste is sweet enough to induce a headache in one sip. It’s all she’s got right now though, and at this point Lili isn’t sure if she’s looking to get drunk or if she just likes the taste of alcohol.

She snorts. The taste of alcohol, really? She uncaps the bottle, pinches her nose, and tilts her head to the sky. It tastes like shit, and she has to fight the urge to immediately hurl.

“That’s really pathetic.”

Someone snatches the bottle out of her grasp, and Lili has to squint through her teary eyes to see the perpetrator. His blue jacket and cat-like silhouette gives his identity away.

“What is—?” she tries to spit out, but the stench of alcohol is acting as an impromptu gag order on her. Avett sighs and drops down next to her. He examines the bottle with narrowed eyes.

“Gallian blue…” he says. “You’re really just going to chug this by yourself? It’s literally syrup. It’s disgusting.”

“Auren gave it to me.” Lili swipes at her mouth with a sleeve.

“Of course.”

“There’s a lot of history behind its taste.”

“History doesn’t matter if you’re sitting out here, moping around by yourself and drinking the candyman’s ejaculate. What’s up?”

Lili keeps her mouth shut. By now the alcohol should have settled into her head as a steady thrum, but it’s as if she’d never had it in the first place. She jerks her chin at the bottle in Avett’s hands.

He groans and fills the cap with wine. “Fine.”   

She watches him swallow and wince. Then he pours another cap and hands it to Lili.

They take turns pouring each other the wine. Around the twentieth pass, Avett holds his hand out to stop her and coughs into his sleeve. Lili puts down the bottle, and it touches the asphalt with a clack.

“I’m fucked,” he gasps out. “Put that shit away.”

She does as he says and screws the cap back on. He is indeed, as he says, totally ‘fucked’—his face is flushed beyond belief, and his breathing has turned sporadic. Lili’s not sure why he’d chosen to have that much—getting drunk fucking sucks in the long run—but she knows he’s probably got several reasons as to why his mood’s in the gutter. She knows how much Avett despises the mere idea of having to potentially meet with another A ranker. She knows that the money Alexei is offering to them is nothing to scoff at either. Avett has been left with a once in a lifetime opportunity worth ditching all morals for, and that leaves him in an awkward position.

Lili is scared too—rightfully so. She’s felt the presence of an A rank before, has bathed in its power like a child at a hot spring. There’s no need for her to remember the encounter—her body can recall the meeting with startling accuracy, as if that power had already been engraved into her DNA from the very beginning.

“H-how?”

She looks back at her partner. He’s blinking at her slowly, like he’s trying to comprehend the incomprehensible for the first time.

Lili asks, “How what?”

“You’re not drunk…”

She touches a hand to her cheek—there’s no Asian flush, and there aren’t any red splotches on her hands either. “I told you, ever since Ava di—”

“I fucking know you’re tolerant,” he snaps. “But this shit isn’t normal. Look at me, then look at you. We’ve been matching each other drink for drink, and you were drinking before I even got here.”

Lili falls silent.

He continues, “You know, when we flew over to the Hive after the mission, I caught Alexei drinking… fuck, probably rubbing alcohol or something. It was green, and all he did was smile at me and hide the bottle under his desk like some fucking chronic drunk. Smelt like shit, but it was potent, I could tell.”

Absinthe. “Drinking from the bottle?” Lili asks.

“From a glass. Prick’s too up his own ass to drink from the bottle, but he’ll chug it if it’s in some fancy glassware.”

Same difference, she thinks. “What are you getting at?”

“What was Ava?” he asks, his voice soft yet demanding.

She shrugs. Friend? Foe? Has Lili ever known?

“I don’t mean like what she meant to you, dumbass. I meant biologically. I meant if she shat from the same hole she pissed from or if she had scales or anything, because I’m starting to put two and two together and it’s all adding up to five. I’m missing something.”

“Why do you care?”

“It’s not a crime to want to know things, princess.”

“You’re nosy.”

"Bet there's a reason why you're not answering with a simple 'Human,' huh."

Lili coughs. Despite Avett's intoxicated state, he's still managed to catch her in one of his verbal traps. A single moment of hesitation is all the confirmation that he needs.

"She did this to you," he mumbles, "didn't she? She's the reason why you're never drunk, why you're an overseer. Just like Alexei."

Lili doesn't respond. Avett isn't a mind reader, but he might as well be one. She wants to tell him all about her past, she really does, but that would mean sewing together the chasm between the spoken word and the unspoken traumas of Ava's untimely death. Lili doesn't know if she can cross that gap yet as she is now, let alone if she ever will. Hell is to lose your tongue in the presence of your caregivers, and she'd gotten rid of her lips a long time ago.

Avett resumes staring off into the abyss of Alexei's makeshift hangar. "Bear with me for a second longer. I need to drop my sorrows off somewhere as well."

She leans against the ship. Go ahead.

"Think the new recruit… has a crush on me."

"I think you're delusional."

"Ok, hear me out. Have you seen how she looks at me?" He shivers; Lili wonders if he’s shivering out of disgust or if it's the alcohol. "Big, teardrop eyes, over-friendly disposition—"

"I think she just looks like that."

"I'm not trying to convince you that she's got the hots for me, and that I want to get with her. I'm trying to tell you that she's seventeen and I'm twenty, so it's weird as shit, and she's also a bit overbearing."

She bobs her head in acknowledgement, though she’s definitely still skeptical.

Avett snorts. "Just because you've never had someone fall in love with you, doesn't mean that it can't happen to someone else. Don't be so bitter."

"Wow, aren't you the love expert."

"With this face? Of course I am."

"Bet you've got people pining after you all the time too," Lili mumbles under her breath. "Lucky cunt."

Her partner straightens himself quickly, his ears swivelling into formation as a wide grin stretches across his face. "Did I just hear what I think I just heard?"

"What?" Lili grumbles.

"Was that a pickup line? For me?"

Her mood sours like a bottle of milk that's been left out in the midday January sun. She thinks of setting him straight, to defend her innocence like a man on trial, but she stops her outburst and clamps her lips shut, because that's exactly what Avett wants—to make a spluttering mess out of Lili.

"In your dreams," she manages to spit out.

"Lilith, I'm gonna be honest." He's wobbling on the spot now like he's forgotten how to balance himself. "If someone held a blaster up to my head and told me to fuck someone aboard the Winnow, I would take that gun and shoot me myself. But if suicide wasn't an option, well…"

Lili stands up. "I have to go."

"No—please!" He latches onto her ankle like she's just walked off with his precious GlassLink. "Don't go, please Lilith!"

She stares him down from her vantage point. He really is, as he's said before, 'totally fucked.' If his confession hadn't convinced her of his inebriated state before, his completely reddened face and drooling maw does.

Finally, a whimper escapes his lips, and he buries his face into the concrete. "I drank too much. I need you to hold my hair back."

Lili can tell that he needs all the help that he can get.

—

"You know, if you're trying to convince your captain that you two aren't romantically involved, you're doing a pretty bad job by sneaking out and drinking by yourselves."

Lili flinches at the touch of Ysh'vanna's sharp words. She'd caught the two of them last night on their way back from Alexei's bathrooms, and she hadn’t been pleased about it at all. She hadn't said a word as Lili and Avett passed her on their way up the ship, but Lili had known her stance on things by the way she'd asked for them to hand over the bottle of Gallian blue: with a hand on her popped hip, and a completely still face.

"I'm not like Auren, ok?" She quickens her pace in order to match Lili's stride. "I like shooting the shit and getting drunk. Don't drink without me next time, especially not by yourselves."

Lili doesn't even bother looking at Avett for help. His eyes have sunken into his face, leaving dark circles above his cheeks, and he's walking like a zombie that's seen his fair share of reanimations. Occasionally, he'd hold his head in one shaky hand and groan; a testament to his manic-fuelled binge last night.

And of course, Lili is absolutely fine. Just like the bona fide overseer that she is.

They round the corner into the main hall, where Kata’lana waits for them with what looks to be a clipboard in hand. On closer inspection, Lili sees various transparent windows floating on the surface of something that can only be defined as an enlarged GlassLink.

The Draconian taps a finger into her screen, and the board turns opaque. “Been waiting. About ten minutes.”

At first, nobody answers the plucky girl. Then Avett says, “It’s ten thirty. We’re on time.”

“I know. Just saying.” She turns before Avett can fire an answer back at her. “Follow. Alexei is in the basement.”

Ignoring the ominous subtext of what ‘the basement’ could possibly be, they trail Kata’lana to the door at the end of the hall, whereupon she slaps her ID against a scanner. The doors slide open, and she beckons to the others as she takes her first step down a zig-zagging line of steep stairs.

For the remainder of the trip, Kata’lana is as silent as a brick wall. The walls hug the edges of the staircase tightly for the first few flights, but then the corridor falls away to reveal a large, open laboratory that's not unlike the one they'd visited in New Therius. All similarities end there, however—the interior is warmly lit like an old library, and instead of vats, there are rows upon rows of bric-a-brac. Lili can spot a tea cup, a plastic golden cane, and a bag of glossy marbles all in one corner. It takes a moment for her to recognise that these are artifacts.

Kata'lana takes them between a maze of tightly packed and towering bookshelves before they reach their destination. Like a clearing in a forest, the room opens up to a glade of worn-down sofas, scraggly rugs and time-weathered tables. Alexei sits in the midst of all this, reclining in a beige lazy boy with a hardback novel and his chin tilted into a hand, surrounded by all sorts of old tomes from the era of God knows when. Kashira is already sitting a good few metres away from him in her own chair.

"Bought them," Kata'lana says.

Alexei snaps his book shut. "Welcome to my true study, esteemed guests and Avett. Please, take a seat.”

“Classy,” Avett mumbles.

The crew find their seats around the central pile of rugs. The chair Lili’s sitting on is made out of faux leather, and it has already begun to flake off at the armrests, revealing their tattered insides for the world to see. It’s hard for Lili to get comfortable when it feels like a spider could crawl up her leg at any moment, but she manages to relax after fixing her eyes back on Alexei and Kata’lana.

“As you are aware, Kashira and Lili are the keys to liberating Earth and the rest of the realms, both discovered and undiscovered, from the threat of any further Migrations.” Alexei motions to Kata’lana, who nods in approval. All of Alexei’s information is gathered and sifted through mostly by the younger Draconian woman, Lili realises, and it is Alexei’s job to navigate diplomatic matters with his silver tongue.

“Thing is. It’s impossible for Kashira to channel the ether she needs to create the prophecy that we need concurrently. Even with Lili overfuelling Kashira with her unique ether, her body will only be able to hold an excess of twenty milliliters, for a total of roughly one hundred milliliters—the minimum amount of ether that she needs would be around five hundred.” Kata'lana rolls up her sleeves, then unfolds them again; Lili recognises this as a nervous habit. “However, her status as a New Order Gallian means we can give her ether capabilities a bit of oomf. And so I present to you: the Catalyst.”

She reveals a holographic model display on her GlassLink. With a flick of her fingers, she sets the model spinning. The Catalyst consists of several layers of round shells which rotate about a central object—further observation shows that the central object has yet to be modelled; this must be where the artifact goes. The other mechanisms are far too complicated for a layman such as Lili to grasp, but Avett seems to be looking intently at the model like he’s reading from an intriguing book.

Before Kata’lana can explain her contraption, Avett says, “You know that the chance of using any kind of draconic artifact as a battery without repercussion is next to zero, right? This thing is more likely to blow up in your face than to actually work.”

The scientist flicks her eyes at Lili, then back at Avett. “It’s possible to restore their functionality by using Kashira’s affinity. And from the scale of such a feat, it shouldn’t be too demanding for her. Not on the scale of ending a thousand year phenomenon that spans multiple planes of reality, no.” She motions at the rotating model, and it phases out of existence.

Avett sits back, satisfied for now.

Alexei picks up where his assistant left off. "As Kata'lana has garnered from the IRC's weekly reports, there appears to be a high amount of draconic activity surrounding the area between New Therius and the Afflatus. Though the Palatable yet remains in the area, it should not prove a threat to any well-versed mercenary team—as we've already stated, A07 exudes no aura."

Kata'lana taps at her GlassLink a few times, and another hologram bursts into the air. This one is a painstakingly created replica of the Palatable, and to the side is a comprehensive biographical analysis of its capabilities. Lili squints at the miniature dragon; though the mesh isn’t coloured, she knows that the Palatable has scales of hot white, and that its eyes aren’t black and beady like the Equaliser’s, but wide and vivid. She swallows and tries her best to ignore the sting of bile at the back of her throat.

Kata’lana continues, "We're using A07's artifacts because of this dragon's aptitude for ether storage and control. Research from the last Migration states that the reason why A07 doesn't have an aura is because of its acute command over ether. It has the ability to release its aura in controlled bursts instead, and thus, it would be logical to conclude that it would also be able to store large amounts of ether without straining its body for long periods of time. As such, each specimen is highly adaptable, and the specifics of their abilities vary to suit the demands of their environment. Traits such as these are something Kashira would heavily benefit from, but its precise control over its aura will likely have a hallucinogenic effect on your mind should you somehow alert A07 to your position." She pushes a strand of white hair behind her ear and falls silent again.

"You'll be heading into the contact zone within the week, and you’re expected to come back alive, so I would suggest studying up," muses Alexei. "Kata'lana will send all of this data to your 'Links; I highly recommend a thorough sifting. They're her own collated notes on the beast, afterall."

"Not a big deal." She shoves her hands into her pockets and looks to the ground. "Just got pissed that all the data I needed wasn't in one place. Did it myself instead. Am I done here?"

The overseer exhales a silent laugh through his nose and says nothing more. Kata’lana heads for a space between the bookshelves and disappears in seconds, presumably to either gather her wits or to return to her research.

For a moment, nobody dares to speak. They watch the model on Kata’lana’s GlassLink spin on the spot with their breaths held and their nerves frozen.

Something in Alexei’s coat pocket beeps. He curses, withdraws his GlassLink, and gives his display the stink eye. “Apologies, it seems that our meeting will have to be cut short.” He stands and adjusts his coat so that it hugs his neck closely, as if he’s protecting himself from the elements. “Just a bit of riot control.”

He smiles. He leaves the same way Kata’lana left.

Then Avett says, “So how are we getting past this… hulk of a dragon without getting spotted? It’s no B rank—this is big game.” He inhales sharply. “The improved senses are nothing to sneeze at.”

“Actually,” Auren says as he flits his eyes between Kashira and Lili, “I may know a method. Captain O’Raal, if we could borrow the ship for a quick demonstration and rehearsal.”

She gives him a thumbs up before turning to Lili and Kashira. “Have fun, kiddos.”

—

Along with Kashira and Auren, Lili stands on the Winnow’s deck. Her cloak whips around her, hugging her arms and legs skin-tight. Lili isn’t sure how she’s meant to be standing up here with the wind in her clothes and the clouds in her face, but Auren nods to Ysh’vanna and the captain goes to press a button at her side.

The tubular-like constructs that line each side of the deck fan out, revealing faceted crystalline cores—it reminds Lili of a sunflower’s disc in the midday sun. The wind stops immediately, and Lili teeters forward, her body flailing off-kilter from the sudden lack of pressure at her back. When she manages to steady herself, she catches the slightest smirk from Avett as he watches from inside the ship. It must be so easy to be perfectly balanced all the time as a Kattish. She scowls back at him.

“What are…?” She beckons to the tubes.

Auren opens his mouth to answer, but Kashira is faster. “Coppersilk—named after the Kattish mechanic who developed them, Captain Wick Coppersilk of the Bludgeoner. The highest rank any primary mechanic has achieved, and the most decorated man of his rank.” She eyes the ship’s windshield nervously, and it takes a second for Lili to notice who it is she’s looking at. “But we just call them wind blockers most of the time.”

Lili looks to the coveted man of the hour. As she’s guessed, Avett hasn’t heard a lick of Kashira’s tirade on the achievements of his race—no, that would be incorrect. A subtle flicker of his ear is all Lili needs to know that he’s choosing to ignore her. He can hear just fine. Better than fine, unfortunately.

And of course, Auren is oblivious to all of this. He picks up where Kashira leaves off. “What we are about to cast is an elementary technique that all Portal Keepers are required to master before their first excursion.”

Kashira’s eyes light up. “You’re a Portal Keeper?”

He coughs. “I was. Most Eldrakians were.” Upon seeing the confusion on Lili’s face, he adds, “Portal Keepers are, essentially, the sanitation workers who keep the portals connecting each realm in a stable condition. Occasionally the portals will misalign, just an iota, resulting in a misteleportation during transit—we remedy these anomalies.”

Lili winces as she imagines splintered ships and broken bodies, each construct and limb torn asunder by an obstructing mountain or building. Auren hastily corrects himself. “Just an iota, Lili. The dragons have been known to take control of these portals from time to time, and they will occasionally take control of them in an attempt to force a mass Migration to a previous realm. Therefore, the portals will align themselves to an area brimming with draconic activity, which often results in an unnecessary encounter.”

She shudders. His explanation isn’t any better than the alternative.

“That’s where the elementary technique you were talking about comes in, right?” asks Kashira.

“Yes.” Auren seems taken aback. “I am surprised that a layman as yourself would be knowledgeable about the training process. As it is impossible to know in advance if the portals are misaligned, it is protocol to cast a shield of sorts prior to allowing a ship through the portal, thereby masking their presence to any lurking dragons. When done correctly and with a sufficient amount of casters, the shield should be nigh-impermeable and will remain in place for another twenty hours before it will begin to show signs of wear.”

“So that’s what you do on the ship when we’re out,” says Lili. “Keeping up the shield.”

“Certainly not twiddling my thumbs.” He looks to the sky again—by now, the Winnow has reached high enough altitudes for Lili to skim her hand along the edge of the clouds if she wished to. To her surprise, the air isn’t thin; she supposes that this is due to the work of the wind blockers.

Kashira looks with him. “How long does the shield last with only three casters?”

The answer comes curtly. “Six hours, though with my constant presence it should last for as long as I wish it to.”

Lili asks, “What about the other part? The more workers, the less likely we’ll be spotted? We’ve only got three—”

She stops herself when she sees Auren’s steeled jaw and distant gaze.

“I do not engage with the practice of wandering into a lost fight,” he says. “Now, watch carefully.”

For the next two hours or so, Auren trains Lili and Kashira to their bones. As it turns out, creating a shield for the ship is just like warding a larger, far less precise version of Lili’s body. Auren encourages the same technique—the faceted make of the shield is what keeps it upright for longer, he teaches. Auren also explains that the procedure only works on inanimate objects, and that attempts to shield anything beyond an inanimate object are far less effective than shielding a ship or a building.

By the time the hour’s up, Lili feels like she’s been training straight for a year. Time seems to crawl by at a snail’s pace in the skies; Lili chalks it up to the fact there’s simply nothing to look at but a sea of white and blue. Kashira isn’t one for small conversation either, and neither is Auren.

Not that Lili would be any good at small talk. As the engines sputter out of life and the Winnow touches down in the hangar again, she finds herself actually craving the comfort of her more sociable colleagues. Mostly Avett.

She taps her ID against the scanner and walks through the sliding doors, only to find Avett and Ysh’vanna engrossed in what seems to be a… Lili squints at the text floating on the ship’s navigational display. What used to be indecipherable buttons and baffling iconography has been replaced by various items that Lili has seen before during her trip to the Hive’s supermarket. This is a shopping list.

Avett points at the list vaguely. “There. Sneak it in there, he’ll never notice it.”

“Roger, captain,” Ysh’vanna answers. She taps at her GlassLink, and sure enough, ‘vodka’ appears between ‘battery chambers’ and ‘wholegrain bread.’

“Who will not notice it?” Auren asks.

Ysh’vanna swipes her finger across her GlassLink, and her entry disappears from the list. “Changed our priorities around. I’ve just had a chat with Avett, and he’s agreed that five replacement battery chambers is a bit overkill on our finances. He only needs two, and he’ll barely notice it. The difference, I mean.”

Avett coughs, but Auren nods in approval. It’s too late—his fate is sealed. His vodka-less fate.

“I had better not catch you referring to the wrong captain again, Ysh’vanna,” Auren warns.

“Roger, cap—esteemed backline caster Auren Draksparrow.” Ysh’vanna grins sheepishly. "Anyway, we got some plans planned out for the relic retrieval."

At this, the Eldrakian's face lights up. "Oh? Do impart this knowledge upon us."

"Naturally." She swipes a finger across her screen again, and another image—the model of the Palatable—takes the place of the shopping list. "First off, this guy here prefers to sleep with a roof over his head. We'll likely find most of its artifacts indoors, where our ship won't fit."

The casters freeze. Lili can't even feel her fucking ether anymore, let alone her arms, and now her captain's telling them that their two hours of training won't be useful after all?

Ysh'vanna brings a hand up before Auren can speak a single word. "Not so fast. It's true that it keeps a vast majority of its artifacts in its nest, but take a look." The screen zooms up on a particular box of text. "While it doesn't need calories to subsist, as most dragons don't, it enjoys hunting wildlife for sport once in a fortnight. There's a good chance that it's left artifacts scattered around the area from these trips. We should be able to stay in the ship for the rest of the mission. Those shields should remain relevant."

Kashira heaves a sigh. "Thank the stars!" she says. Then she covers her mouth in shock. She apologises profusely and promptly stumbles into the bathroom, though not before throwing a yearning—and lingering—gaze at Avett.

Emphasis on the lingering. Lili watches the girl stop at the door for eons, just struggling with the lock mechanism and fiddling with her ID. It only slides open after an indeterminate amount of time.

Then she’s scurrying out of the room quickly, leaving Avett with the freedom to throw his own disgusted look at Lili. She raises and lowers her shoulders just a touch for him; it's a blessing to be socially awkward and relatively average in terms of looks, because she wouldn't be able to handle pining and crushes at all. She only pities Avett at this point.